AG's office says man is kingpin

GOSHEN — Prosecutors say John Bland is a kingpin in an oxycodone ring.

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By HEATHER YAKIN

recordonline.com

By HEATHER YAKIN

Posted Mar. 29, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By HEATHER YAKIN

Posted Mar. 29, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

GOSHEN — Prosecutors say John Bland is a kingpin in an oxycodone ring.

His court-appointed lawyer said Bland can't even post bail.

Bland, 49, of the Bronx, was back in Orange County Court Thursday to face charges he headed up a prescription drug trafficking ring, driving accomplices in a rental car to fill oxycodone prescriptions at pharmacies in Orange and Dutchess counties and New York City.

Bland has been indicted on charges including operating as a major trafficker. He was arrested March 1 after an investigation by the New York State Attorney General's Office's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the New York City Human Resources Administration.

The attorney general's office says Bland gave forged prescriptions to his accomplices and then drove them to pharmacies to fill the prescriptions. They then allegedly turned over the pills to Bland, who paid them $150 to $400; and he sold the pills to drug dealers. Prosecutors say Bland moved thousands of oxycodone pills with a value of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Five alleged accomplices, all from the Bronx, have been charged with felony drug possession and conspiracy; each faces up to nine years in prison if convicted.

In court Thursday, Judge Jeffrey Berry noted that if convicted of the most severe crime, Bland would face a minimum of 15 years to life in prison and 25 years to life maximum. "This is the last vestige of the old Rockefeller laws," Berry said.

The case was adjourned to April 22. Bland is being held at Orange County Jail, now in lieu of $250,000 bail or $1.5 million bond.

After court, Bland's lawyer, Mark Gordon dismissed the idea of his client as a drug-ring mastermind. "He wasn't able to make the bail. How is he a kingpin?"